Painter Space with the Open Door by Amer Kobaslija

Amer Kobaslija, Painter’s Space with Open Door, 2006, Oil on panel, 48 x 65 inches, Gift of Katherine M. Harrison, 2022.13.1

Amer Kobaslija, a Bosnian artist, has found himself in many places across the globe. Florida, however, represents a special location as he shares, “Finding home is a tricky thing. Of all the places in the world this [Florida] is home for me. Somehow it feels right here. I love the beaches and the sunshine.” [1]

Born in modern Bosnia and Herzegovina then moving to Yugoslavia, Kobaslija and his family were forced to navigate hostile environments towards Bosniak Muslim [1] during a genocide. [2] Ultimately, in 1993 they fled to a refugee camp in Nuremberg, Germany.

Kobaslija would soon travel in the country to Dusseldorf, where he enrolled in the Kunst Akademie Art Academy. After four years though, his family were on the move once again, this time to Jacksonville, Florida. [3] When first arriving in America, Kobaslija didn’t speak English [4] but his art attracted people from across the United States and the world.

He first received a B.F.A in Printmaking at Ringling College of Art and Design (Saratosa, FL). Kobaslija would then move north, getting a M.F.A. in Painting at Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ) and a teachers position at both Bowdoin College (Brunswick, ME) and Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA). [4] Kobaslija currently serves as an assistant professor of art at the University of Central Florida. [5] He spends his time in Orlando, Jacksonville, the American North East, Japan (where his wife is from) and Europe. [6]

Kobaslija’s subjects are often painters’ rooms from various perspectives. The piece above, entitled Painter’s Space with Open Door (2006), encapsulates how the studio is an “inner world of a painter, a visual diary, a chronicle of state of mind.” [7] Because of this, they can have autobiographical sides for Kobaslija. He states, “Over the last two and half decades, ever since I left war-town Bosnia, my life has been nomadic. I have lived in a number of countries, too many places to remember them all. When I think about it, it’s like a blur, a dream. Too much happened in too little time. In a way, by painting my studios as I move from one to another, I am making this chronicle, a visual diary, and exerting control, however small, over my life.” [8]

In addition to rooms, Kobaslija has painted numerous landscapes, primarily of Florida. His collections often juxtapose the natural Floridian landscape with that of typical American Urban development. This theme of man’s coexistence with nature can also be seen in his paintings of the cleanup following the 2011 tsunami in Japan. [9]

During the Pandemic, Kobaslija would paint rooms, Floridian landscapes and figures in costume, offering a reflection on isolation, anonymity and the sheer “strangeness of the current times”. [10]

Some of Kobaslija’s accolades include exhibitions in Switzerland, Paris, New Orleans, New York, Chicago and across California/Florida as well as being a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2005), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2006) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). His work also has appeared in various collections and other publishings such as the Staten Island Museum, de Saisset Museum, The Japan Times, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Consulate General of Japan,[11] and the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). [12]